A Year Changes Everything
by 13SapphireStars13
Summary: Its been a year. One year since Hal disappeared without a trace. One year since the Skitter's went quiet. One year for everything to change.
1. The Prolouge

It's been a year. One long, hard, painfully emotional year. One that left everyone a little bit more messed up than they had been the year before

It had all started on the night after New Year's. No one had noticed anything until it was too late to do anything. He disappeared without a single trace. Left everything except for his gun and a picture of the Mason family taken before the Skitters attacked and turned their lives into a living hell on Earth.

What shocked everyone the most was who it was that disappeared. Out of everyone they had never expected this to happen. Not him. He was too loyal; too stubborn; too close to his family. He was just always there fighting for the cause, for his family.

When others went to retreat he was the one who steam rolled in, like an idiot (a respected idiot), but ultimately saving the day. It was the curve-ball that they had never expected. Or even thought to expect.

It was Hal.

He was just gone only leaving a note with two simple words. "I'm sorry." He left it someplace where everyone would see it if they bothered to look, but no one did. They all thought he had gone on an unannounced scavenge trip for supplies. But then a routine day trip turned into two days then three days. On the fourth day everyone started panicking. Tom tore Hal's room apart looking for something, anything, to give him a hint as to where his eldest son had gone.

He only found those two simple words on a small piece of paper held under an army knife that Tom had given Hal after everything had started.

There was no reason anyone could see, no tell tale signs that said he was thinking of leaving that anyone could think of, nothing. He didn't say anything at all about wanting to leave to his brothers or Maggie.

No one wanted to believe it, but it was undeniable. His things were there, his family was there, everything was just there except for one thing. Him.

Everyone expected him to just walk through the door with a smirk on his face laughing telling them all it was just a big prank. They waited and waited and waited. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and those moths turned into a year. But they kept their waiting.

They went about their everyday business, the Skitters where still out there, but they would always look up when they heard a door open hoping it would be Hal. It never happened.

The Mason family got hit with the impact of Hal's disappearance the worst, obviously they were family. But Maggie was in a close second. She would sit in her room, her room that she shared with Hal, just staring at his things. His boots, his knife, his blanket, everything. Just stare at it sadly allowing the tears to fall freely from her eyes; that is until Ben or Matt would come in and tell her that it was time to go on another scavenge trip or it was time to eat.

Matt didn't really understand what was going on. He didn't know why his brother hadn't returned like he always did. He didn't understand why he dad was no way more protective of his sons now than before. He didn't understand why Maggie wouldn't come out of the room she shared with Hal anymore. Whenever he asked when Hal was coming back Ben would wrap him in a hug and say a very unbelievable "Soon, Mattie." He just wanted his brother back. Correction he wanted his brothers back. Ben had become way surlier than before and would often train on his own away from everyone not letting anyone near him.

Everyone was suffering, some more open than others but they were still suffering. Hal was important to all of them, and they clung to the hope that he would come back even though the evidence was stacked against that hope.

But it was one year, on the anniversary of Hal's disappearance, when Tom, Matt, Ben, and Maggie had gone out on a scouting mission when their prayers get answered, if only in the slightest way.


	2. The Anniversary and The Sighting

"Matt keep up with the group! You can't get too far behind!" Tom glanced back at his youngest son who nodded OK to show Tom that he had heard the order. Matt started walking faster until he reached the rest of the scouting group. Tom reached out to ruffle Matt's hair, but Matt dodged Tom's hand and kept walking. Matt had been ostracizing himself from everyone ever since Hal' disappearance. It worried Tom almost as much as the idea of Hal being missing worried him.

"Tom, we should turn around." Maggie said bringing Tom out of his thoughts. Tom turned to face her as she continued speaking. "We've gone as far as we had planned to go, and we haven't seen any Skitters or any signs of human activity." Tom heard the underlying message of 'We haven't seen anything that says Hal is near here.' but chose to ignore it. All Maggie thought about now a days was Hal and where he could be. Everyone knew not to bring up the subject of Hal up when Maggie was in the room.

"Let's just go a little farther. I think I can see a clearing just up ahead where we can rest for a few minutes before we head back, OK Maggie?" Maggie nodded stiffly but made no remark. Tom sighed inwardly. Everyone was walking on eggshells around each other since Hal left. No one wanted to say it but Hal had been everyone's pick-me-up when they needed it.

Hal was always there for Matt when he would get scared even if Hal was dead tired from two straight all night patrols. When Ben was having his nightmares or was having a bad day Hal would stop and talk with him. And Hal would always be willing to go on an extra scouting mission or scavenge if someone wasn't up to it or couldn't. He would always take less food or medicine for himself, even if he really needed it, so that someone else could have it. He was everyone's favorite Mason child (Or in some cases favorite Mason), even after the whole Eye Worm incident.

Jesus even Pope liked him! And that in itself was a small miracle because Pope hated everyone in the Mason family.

All in all no one noticed how important Hal really was until he vanished. No one really noticed a lot of things about Hal that were right in front of them, even his own family. No one noticed that he had started taking more and more jobs around the base causing him to always be tired because of lack of sleep. How he when he wasn't doing extra jobs or missions or helping someone else he was training himself mercilessly until he would basically drop to the ground because of exhaustion. They didn't notice how he got thinner and thinner because he didn't eat enough; because he wanted to make sure that everyone else ate enough so that they could stay strong, especially Maggie and his family. It had become a common thing for Hal to give up his roll for his brothers to eat or grab a tinier portion of food and give the bigger portion to someone else, even if Hal was starving. No one really noticed a thing because all they saw was the kind face of everyone's pick-me-up and the president's eldest son, who was a brave soldier, telling them that he was fine, that they need not worry about him, and they believed him. They really did.

"Ok everybody, you can take a few minutes to rest before we head back to base." The group had reached the clearing while Tom was once again lost in his thoughts about his missing eldest son.

Matt lay sprawled on the ground while Ben sat next to him drinking from a water bottle. Maggie had taken a map from her backpack and spread it on the ground. Tom walked over to where she was. The map was of the surrounding area of Charleston and most of it had been blacked out with a sharpie. Maggie was blacking out another section of the map.

"Hey Maggie what is that?" Matt asked from where he was sprawled on the ground.

Maggie looked up at him and said "Its a map of where Hal isn't." Matt gave her a confused look, so Maggie sighed and continued explaining. "You see, I've been going on every single scouting mission to see if I can find Hal. I've only got a small part left to scout before i can begin narrowing down where Hal is." She had this frenzied look in her eyes that scares Matt, who scoots a little closer to Ben.

Tom sighs. "Maggie, we've already looked all over Charleston and the surrounding area. He's not here. He's probably left; gone to another city somewhere. Maybe he even went back to Boston."

Maggie snarls at Tom. "You don't get it! Hal would never leave! He promised that he would never leave!" Maggie breaks off in hysterical sobs. She drops to the ground crying. Tom rushes to her and holds her as she cries.

"Shhh. Shhh. It's okay Maggie. It's okay." Tom whispers soothingly as Maggie's sobs turn into sniffles, and she sits up wiping her eyes. Tom gives her a minute and opens his mouth to ask her if she's alright now a huge crash comes from behind them.

Tom whips around, already on the defense to protect Maggie and his sons. The crashing becomes louder as it got closer. Suddenly a girl appeared from the bushes falling on her, tears streaming from her eyes as she tries to frantically tries to get back up. She stands up and for the first time sees Tom and the group. There's a slightly familiar camo jacket clutched in her right hand, but Tom largely ignores it instead he focuses on her face not her hands. She has slightly tanned skin with black hair cut in a boyish style, kind of like how Hal had his hair cut, and hazel eyes just like Hal's.

Her eyes fill with relief and she whispers to herself "Thank God!" She tries to run towards them, but Tom aims his gun at her. Her eyes zero in on the gun and she stops her movement. Her eyes once filled with relief are filled with fear and... was that betrayal? Maggie gasped from behind Tom, but he paid her no mind.

"Put your hands on your head and get down on the ground!" Tom barked at her. She started as if his words weren't what she was expecting.

"Please! You have to help me! They're right behind me!" The tears again started to stream down her face. She looked frantically behind her as if she could hear something, but Tom couldn't hear anything, so he put it down as part of some sort of mental breakdown she was having. It wasn't an uncommon thing, but it had happened less and less now a days since the Skitters had gone quiet.

"Miss, would you please just calm down. If you calm down I promise I will help you." Tom said carefully. The girl gave him a petrified look, and she turned and took off in another direction from the way she had come. She ran at almost an unnatural speed; which slightly worried Tom but he dismissed it because everything about the girl worried and slightly scared Tom.

Matt started to slowly walk towards the place where the girl had stood. "Matt!" Ben tried to grab Matt's arm, but Matt dodged it. "Mattie what are you doing?" Matt just ignored them all even who successfully grabbed his arm, but she shook his arm out of her grip not even looking at her. His attention still completely focused on the spot where the girl had stood.

He bent down and picked up the green jacket the girl had been holding when she scrambled through the bushes. He held it carefully as if he mishandled the jacket it would disappear. Maggie gasped when she saw it, and she whispered "It can't be." Tom gave her a confused glance, but she ignored him.

"What?" Ben asked. "What is it?" Matt brought the jacket to his chest hugging it tightly.

"It's... It's his jacket." Matt said a few tears slipping out of his eyes. Tom gasped along with Ben. They need not be told who 'he' was. They knew. There was only one person who could get such an emotional response from Matt, and that person was Hal.

Ben walked up to Matt and grabbed the jacket gently from Matt. Matt tried to grab the jacket back, but Ben held it a little ways away from Matt until Matt understood that Ben also needed to make sure that this really was Hal's jacket, the jacket Hal always had on. Ben carried the jacket to his father looking at the tag of the jacket. Ben stopped a few feet in front of Tom and looked up at him with tears in his eyes. "It's his." Ben whispered.

"Thank God." Tom said in relief. Maggie shoulders sagged in relief. Tom gathered Ben in a tight hug of relief. Relief because he knew that his missing son was probably still in the area.

"But, wait," Matt said quietly. Everyone turned to stare at him. "Where did that girl get Hal's jacket? He never lets anyone touch it." This confused everyone.

"Maybe he gave it to her hoping that she would run into us, and we would help her or she could tell them where he was." Ben shrugged as he said this.

Tom immediately felt guilty. His missing son had probably sent that girl to Tom, and he had basically made her run away.

Before anyone else could voice they were interrupted by another bout of loud rustling from the trees. This time Ben, Maggie, and Tom all raised their guns as a group of maybe four boys around the age of 19 maybe 20 busted into the clearing.

"Whoa." The tallest of the group held out his arms to stop the rest of the group when he saw the three guns trained on them. "Hey, whoa, dudes could you, like, put those away? We're not going to cause any trouble. I mean," The boy gestured to the rest of his group slightly laughing. "We're not armed and we can't doing anything to you guys." Tom nodded, and Ben, Maggie, and Tom lowered their weapons so that they pointed to the ground. "Thanks." The boy said; the entire group of boys looking relieved.

"So what are you boys doing out here all alone?" Tom asked.

The tallest, the obvious leader, laughed and said "We're uh... Looking for our... sister. She's a bit loopy in the head and today she just took off we're looking for her." The way all of the boy's shifted nervously told Tom that they weren't telling the truth; though Tom didn't press them for answers. His mind was otherwise occupied though so don't blame him.

"Well thanks for like not yeah know shooting us. Hey have you seen a girl run through here? She would have been around 5'10 maybe '11 with black hair cut in kind of a boy's style? She was probably carrying some sort of jacket. It would have been blackish." The leader boy asked. Tom didn't really understand why, but he shook his head and said that they hadn't seen anyone in the woods at all. The boys smiled and thanked them and then they left.

When Tom was sure that they had gotten far enough away, he turned to look at Ben, Maggie, and Matt, who had somehow gotten the jacket back and was hugging it like it was a security blanket. He looked at them for a minute or so with all of them staring right back before he said "We need to get back to base. They'll want to know about this."


	3. A New Group Arrives

It had been three months since they had found Hal's jacket. They couldn't find any trail of the girl who had left the jacket behind or any of the boys following her. They hadn't been able to find Hal either, and everyone's spirits had just gotten lower and lower every time a search party came back with no news of Hal's whereabouts.

"Maggie please! You have to come out! Dad needs your help today! The scouts saw a large group of people heading towards here, and we need everyone to be ready out front!" Matt banged incessantly on Maggie's door.

Maggie opened the door tiredly asking "What do you want Matt?" As if it wasn't that obvious considering Matt had been yelling it outside her door for the past ten minutes.  
Matt grabbed her arm and began to pull her the way towards the square.

"Come on Maggie; Dad asked me to come get you; he said it was urgent! The group's supposed to be here in like ten minutes! Maybe they'll have Hal with them!" Matt's eyes lit up at the thought, and Maggie didn't have the heart to tell him that if the group did have Hal he was probably a hostage of some sort. Or dead somewhere.

Maggie shook her head to get those thoughts out of her head as Matt dragged her to the square. She couldn't be thinking those types of thoughts. She had to remain positive and believe that Hal was coming back safe and sound. As hard as it was now a days.

Matt and Maggie quickly made it to the square just in time to see Tom arguing with Weaver. Well you could say that it was arguing, but that wouldn't really a very good adjective. It was more like Tom was being restrained from hitting Weaver screaming at him while Weaver just stood there shocked as Tom's shouts at him reached Maggie's ears.

"How dare you Weaver?! He was one of your best soldiers, and you call off the search like he's some lost dog or something! After all he's done for everyone! He-" Tom shouted.

"He what Tom? Wouldn't want us to waste valuable resources searching for him? He would want us to mope around in his absence? He would want both of his little brothers depressed because he up and left them? We're just dragging the pain on longer than is healthy. We need to stop this. It's what he would have wanted us to do." Weaver words hit Tom hard as Tom stumbled backwards as some of the anger left him.

Tom looked at Weaver with tears in his eyes and said "He's my son."

Weaver sighed tiredly and said in a soft voice "I know he is Tom. Everyone sees Hal as one of their own, but this has gone on long enough; we need to stop this. He's gone." The tears in Tom's eyes fell down his face, but Tom wiped them quickly away.

"You're right Weaver. I let my grief take over. I need to think of everyone and not just myself." Tom turned to address the crowd. "I am sorry everyone for causing a scene. I was a tad too emotional for my own good, but I do have some news that I need to share with everyone." Tom's eyes caught Maggie's, and when he saw that her eyes were filled with tears he shamefully looked away. "It has been decided that the search for Hal Mason, one of our soldiers who disappeared almost fifteen months ago, has gone on long enough. The search will be ended. Everyone who was to be on a search party I am sorry for the inconvenience."

The crowd went into an uproar with people yelling at Tom. Tom just tried to calm them down. When Maggie saw that he was not getting anywhere she shouldered her way to the front of the crowd and whistled. This was a loud piercing whistle that had everyone holding their ears.

"All of you just need to shut up! I get it okay?! You don't want to give up on Hal. He never gave up on you, so you want to repay him. Well now is not the time. We're at war and Hal would want us focused on trying to get these damn Skitters off of our planet not moping about looking for him. So either you let it go and shut up or you come talk to Tom or me about maybe you continuing on your own this little search party. Now we have to prepare for that group that's coming so shut up and listen to Tom." Maggie walked back to where she had left Matt and stood next to him silently with a blank expression on her face as she battled her emotions.

Tom gave her a look that clearly said 'Thank-you.' before he started telling them about the group making their ways towards Charleston.

"Well its not a fairly large group. Maybe about twenty people. All of them below the age of sixteen. There's actually only one sixteen year old, that we can tell, who we know is the leader. The rest of the group look to be around the ages of nine to fourteen. They don't appear to be harnessed or in possession of any weapons, but we still need to be careful. They still could be hostile, and we need to be prepared to fight. When the group arrives here we will show them kindness; if they try to attack us we will defend ourselves. But only if they attack us first." Tom said this to Pope's group, all of whom grumbled but said OK. "Good. They should actually be arriving in a minute or so. Everyone positions."

Just as everyone had scrambled to their positions, the group arrived. The entire group looked relatively harmless. A few were even being carried by others because they were wounded.

The one who was the obvious leader, he barely looked sixteen too young to be leading a group but that was the world now a days, stepped forward. He had a bandage around his head which was stained with a bit of blood.

"My name is Harvey, and we," Harvey gestured to the group around him before continuing. "Need your help."

"Why should we help you?" Someone from Pope's group shouted at Harvey.

A ghost of an emotion flickered across Harvey's face that Maggie couldn't quite decipher, but it looked like sadness.

"Because," Harvey said his gaze flickering around the crowd. "Hal Mason sent us, and we plan to get him back."


	4. An Explanation

"What do you mean Hal Mason sent you?" Tom called out.

"Didn't you listen to a single thing the guy said dingle bat?!" One of the older kids of the group shouted as she came up to stand next to Harvey. "Hal Mason sent us here to get help from you bunch of airheads!"

"Lilli don't speak like that! We need these people's help not their hatred!" Harvey exclaimed to the girl.

"Yeah right Har! The second they hear how we know Hal they'll either kill us or lock us up!" The girl said harshly. "We can't trust them."

The boy, Harvey, sighed and continued speaking but to Tom this time. "It would be best if we could talk about this privately. The events that transpired so that all of us," He once again gestured to the group he had arrived with. "Could meet Hal are something that not a lot of us are comfortable talking about in such a public situation."

"And why is that?" Pope drawled. "Did the Mason family golden boy finally do something bad? Did he go against orders?" Pope started guffawing loudly. "Yeah sure kiddies. Hal Mason got caught up in something so heinous that you can't talk about it! That's hysterical!" Soon enough all of the Beserkers were laughing.

"You peice of sh*t! You have no idea what Hal went through to protect us! What those Skitters did to him is not something you f**king laugh at like it's some hilarious joke your buddy told you! Let me at him Har! That jack*ss needs to learn that he can't laugh at Hal!" Lilli screamed as Harvey held her up in the air. "Let me go! These a**hats won't help us get Hal back from those damn Skitters; we're wasting valuable time dealing with them! Hal could already have been transported from the facility! He won't be able to stop them from continuing those damn experiments on him! He'll be at their mercy all because we stood around and talked with these idiots!" Lilli covered her mouth as she realized what she had just let slip. Harvey set her down on the ground, and she turned to look at him. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry Har. I didn't mean to let it slip! I knew you wanted to break it to Hal's family in private, but I just got so angry, and I wanted to beat the sh*t out of that guy and prove him wrong. That Hal wasn't a joke. I'm so sorry!" The girl looked close to tears she was so sorry.

"Hey Lilli, its okay. What's done is done. The past is in the past." Harvey said wiping away Lilli's tears. Harvey turned to face the stock still, frozen in shock crowd. "I need to speak with Tom Mason, Ben Mason, Matt Mason, Maggie, Colonel Weaver, John Pope, Anne Glass, Cohcise, and whoever at this moment is the acting President in as private a room you have at the moment." Harvey smirked slightly at the crowd. "We wouldn't want any moles to hear us, now would we?"

Marina Teralta stepped forward to speak "I am the acting president right now. Let's go talk in the war room. Everyone who was not asked to talk would you please return to your duties. Tom, Ben, Colonel, Maggie, Anne, Matt, Pope, and Cochise would you please go straight to the war room please. I will be there in a moment with Harvey and whoever he wants to take with him for the meeting." Everyone nodded and went their seperate ways.

Harvey turned around to talk to his group. When he turned around to walk to Marina Lilli was by his side along with one limping african american girl and a tall boy with blonde hair and a nasty looking scar running down from his ear to his neck.

"President Marina this is my third and fourth in command Hazel and Marcus." Harvey said shaking Marina's hand "You already know my second in command Lilli from her outburst. Which we are both really sorry about since we called everyone here a**hats, aren't we Lilli?" Harvey glanced Lilli who gave him a dirty look before she walked up to Marina and shook her hand also in a death grip.

"I still think being here is a huge mistake. But that just my opinion; not that anyone cares about my two scents that is." Lilli said as she stepped back.

Marcus hit Lilli's shoulder with his own. "Yeah, that's because no one cares about your two cents Lilliana." Lilli punched his shoulder, and he said "Ow Lilli what was that for?" His tone said that he knew exactly what it was for , ut he liked teasing her.

"You know exactly what that was for jack*ss. Now let's get this meeting over with. We're wasting daylight just standing around. President could you have one of your people escort the rest of our group to your clinic? I few of us arein rough condition." Marina nodded and signaled for Anthony, who was still loitering around the square, to come to her.

"Anthony, I want you to take the rest of this group down to Lourdes in the infirmary, okay? Tell her that they are top priority,." Anthony nodded and went off to do as she had told him to do. Marina turned back to the four teens left over and said "Follow me. I'll show you the way to the war room, and then you'll explain to us how you know Hal. Then we will figure out how we can help you. "

Harvey at Marina, Marcus grunted in thanks, Lilli gave a curt nod, and Hazel did nothing. Marina then turned at walked with them to the war room.

It only took them a few minutes to reach the room, and Marina ushered the small group of teens inside of the room where everyone was waiting.

The teens went into a seperate corner of the room and began conversing animatedly. Lilli was glaring harshly at Harvey before she growled and pushed past him. She stood in front of everyone, and she slammed her fist into the table.

"Ok numb nuts apparently my superior thought that I should be the one to explain the situation to you idiots. He thought it would be better than me interrupting him halfway through his explanation because I thought he was going to slow." Lilli growled. "Now, all of you know that Hal Mason, eldest child of Tom Mason and a solider, left this compound around fifteenmonths ago, corrrect" Everyone nodded, and Lilli smiled. "Good you're not as big a bucnh of idiots as I thought. Now, when Hal left he didn't just disappear. He got taken. From what he tells us, he got taken by the Skitters about three days after he left this place. They took him to a facility they had created after Karen became the new Overlord. This facility was for experimenting on subjects like Hal. Everyone there wasn't taken at random; they were specifically chosen for their unique abilities. Hal was a born leader, a seasoned warrior, and most of all he used to be a sports star and had an IQ of 169." Everyone stared at her in shock.

Tom cleared his throat and said "Hal didn't have an IQ of 169. He was barely passing a lot of his high school classes." Lilli started laughing along with Harvey, Marcus, and Hazel.

"Oh my sweet Jesus! That's hilarious!" Lilli said when she finished laughing. When she saw how confused the Charleston group still was she continued speaking. "Hal wasn't passing those classes not because he was an idiot; its because the information was so below him that he couldn't stand listening to it. Then when the teacher passed out tests Hal used his own methods to get the answers, but since the teachers didn't understand what he was going on about they failed him."

The Mason familiy's jaws were quite literally dropped. Anne shrugged and said " I'm not surprised." The shocked gazes moved from staring at Lilli to stare at Anne. "It was pretty obvious. Haven't any of you ever realized how quick of a study Hal is? Did you ever think oh well that's odd seeing as he was such a bad student before the war?" Anne sighed and turned her gaze back to Lilli. "Could you please continue?" Lilli nodded and continued from where she'd left off.

"As I was saying, Hal was specially chosen. As were the rest of us, but Hal was different. We all excelled in some physical activity and had IQ's above normal but didn't show it, but Hal was like the perfect version of that idea. He seemed to puzzle the Skitters, which now that I think about is a pretty bad thing. Hal was the special project out of a group of special projects. When we all were only on our second set of experiments; Hal was on his eighth and in intensive training. He was there the longest of us all, and he was most definitely the best out of all us."

"Excuse me if I don't adress the elephant in the room, but why were the Fishheads doing this to you?" Pope asked in his gruff voice, even though he was more than a little freaked out he couldn't show it.

Harvey stepped forward and said "Don't you get? They were making us into the perfect weapon; the perfect super soldiers with the perfect super soldier leader. That is why we're here. We need you to help us break Hal out before they finally break him, and use him against humanity. "

Marina nodded and glanced at everyone in the room as they took in Harvey's words. She moved from Pope to Weaver to Anne to Maggie and then finally to the Masons. She had once called them the fighting Masons, but that was long ago, and the fighting Masons were broken into pieces with one of the pieces in trouble. She turned to look at the four teens and said "What do we need to do?"


End file.
